Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1. The Exit Problem.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

Early-stage investors in technology startups are only looking for growth-oriented companies that can achieve an “exit&# someday – either via selling your company to a larger company or via an IPO. That’s the deal you get when you’re raising in a good market for startup financing. That’s fine.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

While poised with a limited number of transactions this year, the world of public Cloud Computing and SaaS companies has been marked by two events in the past few months: the acquisition of Omniture by Adobe and the high profile IPO of LogMeIn, a leading provider of PC remote access and support with a very interesting freemium model.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review IPO Cloud 48

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 27, 2009

New Capital Earmarked for Global High-Growth Investments LARCHMONT, N.Y., 26 Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), the oldest venture capital practice in the United States, today announced the closing of a $350 million supplement to its current fund family, BVP VII, which closed in June 2007. 2009 Bessemer Venture Partners.

Software Review 48

Software Review Partner United States Venture Capital 48

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

TL:DR : This post aims to recap significant changes in the venture capital industry over the past ten years, and then make some [biased] predictions as to major forces at play in the next five years. However, all three shifts are related and can be summed up simply as: Geeks are Taking Over Venture Capital.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

You see, Dan knows more about venture than most people; and if Dan isn’t aware that “pre-seed is a thing,” then I haven’t done a good enough job of explaining to the world what I and K9 do! Q: What amount of financing is considered Pre-Seed? Typically, Pre-Seed rounds are less than $1M in aggregate capital raised.

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

  I’ve sat down with entrepreneurs and a copy of a term sheet guide I like [ “Term Sheets & Valuations - A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets & Valuations ” by Alex Wilmerding, Aspatore Press.] and walked through each proposed term and why it is or isn’t important. times the investment.).

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

The typical wisdom regarding the appropriate financing course for a new company goes as follows: 1. This venture capital financing - usually between $3 and $10 million - is the first of a number of rounds of outside investment over a period of three to five years. There are a lot of dark, hard days.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). 4. Founder-friendly VCs.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

He’s personally led more than 50 financing rounds. Scott left the company, which eventually IPO’d and became Internet Brands. And finally, Scott demonstrated his internal management tool for managing the metrics of his business. Offers two products: Palantir Government and Palantir Finance. Foursquare.

San Francisco 248

San Francisco Venture Capital Analytics Government 248

Austin Startup

AUGUST 30, 2018

So while the number of dollars pouring into Austin may be increasing, that metric is only favorable to businesses that warrant those sized-rounds. Of these rounds, nearly every one was classified as a Series B or later-stage round, with the exception of a few debt and equity financing rounds.

Austin 48

Austin Early Stage San Francisco Later Stage 48

Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Me: So, you raised venture capital? It’s like we need a finance 101 course for entrepreneurs. There were no metrics. Him: On metrics. In finance they call it “terminal value” but the truth is the price is as arbitrary at your A round as it is at your seed round. Maybe an IPO – who knows? Your A round?

Liquidation Preference 153

Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet Stock 153

Growthink Blog

APRIL 15, 2015

Now given that the company has yet to even come close to breaking even, this can be viewed as either a great validation of Domo''s business model, or as more evidence of the “Bubble Mania” of the current technology financing landscape and a screaming signal to get out while you still can.

Valuation 48

Valuation Venture Capital Finance Acquisition 48

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

But scaling is hard, and these companies can suffer from The Curse of Over Capitalization. Threshold for an IPO is higher Ten years ago, if you had $20M in revenue you were ready to go public. Seed is not the first round of financing any more. K9 Ventures is also on Facebook and Google+. The seed round is bigger.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

Pascal's View

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Dan Primack posted an article in Term Sheet last week titled Yelp This: IPO Market Is Killing It. equity capital markets for emerging growth companies with market capitalizations below $500 million are structurally broken and systemically dysfunctional. .” Between 1991 and 200 80% of IPO’s raised $50mm or less.

IPO 31

IPO Term Sheet Marketing United States 31

Haystack

DECEMBER 26, 2018

TechCrunch’s Kate Clark has done a round-up of the largest “private VC” rounds of 2018, and there’s a whole other list for just $100M+ financings led by Softbank’s Vision Fund. I am expecting a downturn at some point. Maybe it will be 2019, or 2020 — or even 2021. Money has been coming into the U.S.

IPO 76

IPO Private Equity Valuation Acquisition 76

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 12, 2015

I define #PeakVC as the point in time when the maximum amount of $$s are entering the Venture Capital industry. That is because the venture capital industry operates in cycles. That increases the overall money supply coming in to venture. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in the Peak Oil theory or not.

Venture Capital 48

Venture Capital Seed Stage LP Valuation 48

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2012

In an interview with ReadWriteWeb, Davidson explains how the latest industry to receive the disruption treatment has been the venture capital business itself, with the epicenter of the quake right around San Francisco. There used to be the Four Horsemen of the IPO world, back in the '80s and '90s. Number of U.S.

IPO 115

IPO Stock San Francisco Lean 115

Cracking the Code

JANUARY 19, 2016

They also need VCs capable of financing their entire life cycle — on average, SaaS startups raise between $80 and $100 million before an IPO. I began my career at McKinsey and when the Internet bubble burst in 2001, I made a shift towards online software (ASP at the time).

API 48

API Silicon Valley Europe Differentiation 48

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 12, 2007

Attendees included Blue Nile , Postini , LinkedIn , Lifelock , Wize , Sparter , Zopa , Revver , Wikia , Flock , Vimo , Delivery Agent , Gerson Lehrman Group , Pure Networks , Zensys , Summit , T3Ci , Endeca and Nominum - a wide spectrum of companies, both in terms of stage (very early to pre-IPO) and sectors (consumer internet, software, chipsets.).

Software Review 48

Software Review SEM Marketing Las Vegas 48

Pascal's View

AUGUST 21, 2011

question in venture capital. This time, the debate centers on the “favored few” Social Media venture backed companies that have brought tremendous windfalls to a select group of venture funds and management teams, both pre- and post-IPO. Welcome to the latest passionate debate over the ‘valuation bubble or not?’

Valuation 50

Valuation Social Media Media IPO 50

Cracking the Code

MARCH 28, 2022

Today, Europe and Israel have generated 23 public companies worth $231B and private cloud financing reached c. The $900M of SaaS VC funding in 2015 now represents less than Europe's largest financing round, with Celonis raising $1B in June this year. The cloud IPO market has also been very active with 32 IPOs vs. 17 in 2020.

Global 62

Global Europe Software Review 62

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Entrepreneurs and investors who have spent any time dealing with convertible debt seed financing transactions are likely to have encountered the subject of valuation caps. The cap is irrelevant if the next equity financing is at a valuation below the cap amount.) was spun out, and the valuation was set by that financing round.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

Why the Unicorn Financing Market Just Became Dangerous…For All Involved. In February of last year, Fortune magazine writers Erin Griffith and Dan Primack declared 2015 “ The Age of the Unicorns ” noting — “Fortune counts more than 80 startups that have been valued at $1 billion or more by venture capitalists.”

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

Ben's Blog

MARCH 24, 2011

Let’s look at public market comparables and venture capital flows to see if we can find a match. Similarly, in recent high profile private financing rounds for private technology companies with valuations over $1B, the valuation multiples were at or below corresponding multiples for publicly traded companies such as Google.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Database 78

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

You may happen to emphasize the right points that pique an investor’s interest, but you shouldn’t leave your financing up to chance. Second, understand the broader financing climate. There will be one to three issues that are potentially problematic for your financing — address them head on. What will their concerns be?

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

Cracking the Code

MAY 25, 2010

One of his secret: "Incentivize your marketing team on sales not leads" Jeff Jordan, CEO of OpenTable speaking about his IPO process: " Build relationships with key public investors 2-3 years before going public (Morgan Stanley, Fidelity and T. ipo process. Venture Capital. (3). Explore Venture Capital.

Software Review 74

Software Review Cloud IPO Jordan 74

Austin Startup

MAY 19, 2018

Don’t boomerang founders If you have specific metrics you look for in early stage companies. When I was fundraising if I heard “I’d like to invest when you get to $X in revenue” and their metrics weren’t disclosed up front, I often thought of the investors as chickens and I always heard it as a “no”. That’s awesome.

Founder 75

Founder Early Stage Software Review Deal Flow 75

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Save Asia for post-IPO Single instance, multi-tenant, single datacenter - Have only one version of the code in production. Effectively measuring and understanding your CAC and CLTV metrics are key to future success. Only after reaching $1M in CMRR should you consider hiring European sales and services execs behind customer demand.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

Cracking the Code

MARCH 10, 2008

From our private investor experience, a breakeven in 1-2 year seems reasonable and if we look at Salesforce.com CAC ratio since its IPO, it is indeed within this 0.5-1 From our private investor experience, a breakeven in 1-2 year seems reasonable and if we look at Salesforce.com CAC ratio since its IPO, it is indeed within this 0.5-1

Sales 79

Sales Software Review Marketing Technical Review 79

Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Deutsche Bank report has a very interesting chart on the topic presenting the Free Cash Flow margins vs. the revenue growth four years post IPO for select software leaders: As you can see, with 20% Free Cash Flow margin and a 50% growth rate, Salesforce is well positioned in the pack! Venture Capital. (3). Yahoo Finance.

Software Review 48

Software Review Software Technical Review Cloud 48

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

EcoMom’s metrics improved throughout this process and that’s when I decided to invest. I accidently blow the cover of a hot startup raising a round of financing on AngelList (oops!) – hint – it’s a product that I talk very openly about loving but I’m not an investor.

Valuation 292

Valuation Deal Flow Lead Investor Cofounder 292

Cracking the Code

JULY 6, 2007

Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. SaaS business metrics: why are they different? Different models require different performance metrics. The MRR is a great metrics, but it can be perfected. Friday, July 06, 2007.

Software Review 66

Software Review Metrics Valuation Technical Review 66

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 4, 2008

2007 was a turning point for the SaaS industry with the successful IPOs of NetSuite, SuccessFactors, DemandTec, Salary.com, Aprimo and Constant Contact. What metrics should I be using to drive a saas business? or What do I need to do to get ready for an IPO. Save Asia for post-IPO. “Bookings” is for suckers.

Software Review 48

Software Review South Korea IPO Portfolio 48

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPO’s and VC’s) - Steve Blank , July 15, 2010 If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. Metrics availability. Here’s why.

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Startup Metrics for Pirates â?? SaaS Metrics Tutorial â?? easy business finance software. Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents. YCombinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents. National Venture Capital Association â??

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53